Biography

Gina Rayat received her Bachelor of Science degree major in Molecular Biology at the University of Winnipeg and completed her Master of Science degree in Transplantation Immunology at the University of Manitoba. She completed her PhD training at the University of Alberta and moved to Denver, Colorado, USA for a postdoctoral training at the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes. She returned to Edmonton and was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Alberta. She is now Professor in the same department and the Director of the Ray Rajotte Surgical-Medical Research Institute, which is a state of the art facility for surgical education, training, and research at the University of Alberta. Her focus of research is to understand the mechanism(s) of islet graft rejection and to develop safer strategies for preventing rejection and induction of tolerance to islet grafts.

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Research Interest

Islet xenotransplantation, tansplantation tolerance, autoimmunity (type 1 diabetes)